Clicking HDD is now a feature! (PWL)

Discussion in 'SSD and HDD storage' started by Astyanax, Apr 5, 2021.

  1. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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    Has anyone noticed their recently bought drives click every 5+ seconds, and you can't attribute it to the load/unload count?


    This is a feature of drives called Preventative Wear Leveling, intended to ensure lubrication is constantly distributed

     
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  2. cucaulay malkin

    cucaulay malkin Ancient Guru

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    maybe it's wd drives only.thanks for the heads up,will not touch a wd drive then.
    seahawk 2tb drive here,no clicking,super quiet drive.sitting in the open docking station right behind my monitor as if it wasn't there.
     
  3. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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    Its all drives, though depending on drive age and vendor the period could be different.

    a wd black from 2013's stock might do it every 10m, a wd black 2016 might do it every 5 seconds.

    Seagate Ironwolfs and recent Barracuda's are known to do it as well.

    It's a bit of a problem that nearly all the worlds known hdd vendors are now part of WD or Seagate :\
     
  4. Raserian

    Raserian Master Guru

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    I have some old WD laptop drive from 2009 which does this click sound about every 10 minutes. I thought it is problem too, but since performance was fine and no SMART warnings or bad sectors were found, I kept it, glad I did, good to know this is a maintenance feature.

    HGST is part of them too?
     

  5. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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    WD snapped up HGST a few years back, the entire Gold line is rebranded HGST DC HA and HC drives.
     
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  6. anticupidon

    anticupidon Ancient Guru

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    Holy HDD, didn't knew that, a new feature we didn't ask for.
    Kinda confusing, hearing those clicks.
     
  7. Extraordinary

    Extraordinary Guest

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    "intended to ensure lubrication is constantly distributed"

    Every 5 seconds? How quickly does this lubrication dry up?
     
  8. anticupidon

    anticupidon Ancient Guru

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    Not so quick I assume (safely).
     
  9. cucaulay malkin

    cucaulay malkin Ancient Guru

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    wd is using smuckers for their budget drives :D
     
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  10. AsiJu

    AsiJu Ancient Guru

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    I started hearing this with my WD Blue drive (bought some years ago) now that I swapped PSU and new one has hybrid fan feature.
    It's barely audible outside the chassis though.

    It sounds like a relay clicking.
    Wasn't too bothered about it as the drive works and is used for backups.
     

  11. Extraordinary

    Extraordinary Guest

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    Perfect for those using mayo for thermal paste I guess
     
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  12. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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    LOL

    its their most expensive Black and Gold drives that you get it on

    Seagate Ironwolves and Exo's do it too.
     
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  13. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    Now expect this feature to port into SSDs!
     
  14. cucaulay malkin

    cucaulay malkin Ancient Guru

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    glad I got that steel hawk or sea hawk or something.
    I went with the lowest dba drive (as specified in the specs sheet) and if I heard some f***ing clicking it'd be going back immediately.
     
  15. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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    Steel Hawk Data and Security Vault XD.

    good way to not make any noise.
     

  16. Caesar

    Caesar Ancient Guru

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    Just learned new thing
     
  17. Smough

    Smough Master Guru

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    Is there anyway to stop this or shouldn't try do so? My 1TB Toshiba HDD clicks 2-3 times a day. Parks head, then unparks. First you hear a dry sound, like "clogh" (can't really imitate it by typing lol, but it's similar), then I hear "cli-click-click-click", always the same sequence of sounds, never looked at the times it happens, but I think it's always around 11 pm to 2 am, Windows Event Viewer Shows nothing. All s.m.a.r.t tests and benchmarks show no problems, also I play some games on this HDD, RDR2 runs perfectly smooth, no weird issues, For Honor too and MGSV: TPP, so I'd guess it's fine, but who knows? lol
     
  18. anticupidon

    anticupidon Ancient Guru

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    N300 serie from Toshiba is loud and have this feature for sure.
    I can hear my Synology box from another room, I choose to ignore it now. But first, I was worried.
     
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  19. Kevin Mauro

    Kevin Mauro Master Guru

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    There have to be materials that are less audible ... at least in niche markets OEMs could offer for those more inclined to pay
    Agreed, back when I used HDDs still & tried those out - man were they loud.
     
  20. cucaulay malkin

    cucaulay malkin Ancient Guru

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    I'm 6 years with a hybrid psu,and I'll tell you what - I'm not going hybrid again.
    It's a nice feature for idle,but that fan will have to start when the psu is loaded,sooner or later.And it's gonna go straight to high rpm to cool it down.IMO better use pwm than hybrid. bequiet psus are a great example.
     

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